


So Help Me, God

by lightning_alexander (fanficcornerwriter19)



Category: Noli Me Tangere & Related Works - José Rizal
Genre: 61: Tugisan sa Lawa, 63: Ang Noche Buena, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angstybarra, Basilio is a Smol Bean, Canonical Character Death (Sisa), Crisostemo, Dubious Treatment of Medical Matters, Elias is Polite, Gen, I'm Bad At Summaries, Mild Blood, No Beta We Go Down Like Elias, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, except of course he doesn't die here, how many lame puns can i make with ibarra's name? let's find out, just literally
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29110380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanficcornerwriter19/pseuds/lightning_alexander
Summary: Crisostomo Ibarra is trouble, and not the good kind. He is fierce instinctive kindness buried under willful ignorance and bone-deep optimism. He means life debts and dead-end revenge and reconnaissance of a Manila prison. Elias would be a good deal more content if he never saw Ibarra again.Of course, that's when he overestimates his own ability to evade bullets, and discovers that apparently God has other plans.Hewillsee this through, even if it kills him. Unfortunately for his peace of mind, it looks like it won't.
Relationships: Basilio & Crisostomo Ibarra, Basilio & Elias, Crisostmo Ibarra & Maria Clara, Elias & Crisostomo Ibarra
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	1. In Which Elias Does Not Appreciate His Luck

**Author's Note:**

> basically: the AU where Elias gets a little lucky on a late December morning, and the first person he meets after jumping off the boat is the person he left in it. Ibarra is not happy with his self-care. 
> 
> fair warning: by the time I post this I'll only have Chapter 2 and a bit of Chapter 3 written, and I only have a tentative plot. I have a bad habit of abandoning multichapter fics, but I want to hear what you guys think as I go along. if I discontinue this for good I'll probably delete it, since either I won't want to write it at all or I'll have a better version.
> 
> that's also why I chose not to use archive warnings yet. I'm not very far in the story and I don't know what will apply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for mentions of blood. the worst of Elias's bleeding is over by the time the story starts, but it leaves its marks. also, Sisa still dies :/ because I don't know enough to have a theory about what actually killed her, so I couldn't plausibly fix it, either.

Elias took a breath, shallower than he liked. He flexed his fingers experimentally, and made a fist. It did not close quite as tightly as he was used to. “Haven’t you tied the knots too tight?” 

“No, they are exactly as tight as I need them to be,” said Ibarra, from where he was drying his hands on the skirt of his frock coat, leaving streaks of grime on his arms. His temples were damp with sweat, and below one of them was a smudge of blood. No doubt there was some in his hair too. “Part of that slight impairment is blood loss. You need a doctor, and more likely than not stitches, but for now you must leave my knots alone.” 

At least it hurt a little less. “The wound is not nearly as deep as that, surely,” he said. 

“Not deep, no.” Ibarra rolled down his sleeves and fastened the cuffs, unperturbed by the spots of red on them. “However, that wound is nearly as long as your forearm, and the other one may or may not still have the bullet inside." 

He had very little experience with bullet wounds, but the way Ibarra said this was even grimmer than the rest of his new attitude. Gone was the frank young man who had grinned at Albino’s reference to a German trumpeter. Gone was the disarming manner of ingenuous expectation. Instead, standing on the shore of the lake, brusquely tugging on his coat over a bare shirt, he seemed to be slowly acquiring an air of brooding solemnity that made Elias squirm to think about.

No doubt Ibarra was right and he would need to revisit the wounds eventually, but not before they had both found new clothes. He sighed in resignation, quiet enough that only he could hear it. “How soon?” 

“As soon as possible,” said Ibarra, as cool as if he had not been frantically picking at the knot in his tie five minutes ago. “Infection is a considerable risk.” 

Then their course of action was clear. “Can you walk, señor?” 

A flash of amusement crossed Ibarra’s face—the first since the night before. “You should be more worried about yourself,” he said; “I am only a little hungry. You, I think, need a drink and a hearty meal in the next few hours.” 

Elias snorted quietly. Fruits and vegetables he could seek out or steal, but meat required a good deal more preparation, for which he had no tools. He kept a small pot for cooking rice—when he could get it—and boiling water and that was all. In this state he could hardly go out and buy anything, and Ibarra was far too recognizable even without taking into account his frock coat. 

Well. They could cross that bridge when they needed to. He dipped his head and began walking. Ibarra followed him without a word or a question, strides quiet and decisive. 

The sun rose. It was December, but before long Elias’s shirt stuck lightly to the wound in his side, pulling when he moved. Breaths of air eddied lazily without gaining enough speed to become a breeze. Leaves and stones crackled and shuffled under his bare feet, and crunched seconds later under Ibarra’s dusty shoes. 

It bothered him. All of it bothered him. 

Imprisonment, whether three days or three weeks or three years, would change anybody, but he had expected nothing quite as—vitriolic—as Ibarra’s tone last night. Though his own experience had taught him that man was indeed a creature of circumstance, he had also learned that circumstances only did so much, and until then he had not truly seen Ibarra’s potential for vindictiveness. Something had brought it out. 

He tugged thoughtfully at one of the strips of sleeve binding Ibarra’s waistcoat to his arm and wiggled the other hand’s fingers. 

“Let it be,” Ibarra’s voice chided absently from behind him. He was tempted to retort that his hand felt like it might be going numb. 

The shadows shrank and sharpened. Under the waistcoat a bead of sweat ran down Elias’s arm, and fizzled out into a spark of dull pain when it touched the edge of the wound. Ibarra’s steps grew heavy before it happened again. 

Credit where credit was due: Ibarra voiced no actual complaint. Despite the suppressed yawns and occasional stumble, he appeared at least slightly familiar with the area and made a noble effort not to moan. Perhaps it should have been less surprising that Elias grew footsore before he did, since he was wearing shoes and Elias had lost his. Still, when they stopped on the shore early into the afternoon, it was Ibarra who went straight for the water, throwing his coat aside as he went. 

Elias went too, of course. He had a vague idea of washing his wound in the sun-warmed water, but as soon as he reached for the strips of cloth cinched around his arm Ibarra raised his head and fixed him with a flat stare. 

Well, not that, then, God knew why. He sat down instead. 

“Are you sure you want to get your feet wet?” he asked, instead of what he wanted to be asking. 

“I can dry them on my coat,” Ibarra replied. He was shin-deep in the water now, and seemed happy enough to stay there. 

If he said so. 

He looked odd: disheveled hair and heavy, frowning brows and rust-speckled shirtsleeves and rolled-up evening trousers, but he looked more pensive than angry. Even so, the memory of his utter calm the night before kept Elias’s eyes from completely leaving him. Had Elias been a forgetful man, Ibarra’s expression as he said _there are no brothers to be thought of, only wolves that devour_ would have fixed the sentence in his mind forever, and Elias was not a forgetful man. 

“It’s a pity my house burned down,” Ibarra mused. “I could have used a great many things from my laboratory, not least the phenol.” 

He did not recognize the word. “Pardon, the what?” 

“An acid,” Ibarra said, talking as much to himself as to Elias, “if a mild one. I brought it home from England. I didn’t have much, but if I had all my equipment and time, I might have been able to derive more. It was the only chemical I had that I knew could be used as an antiseptic.” 

Elias recalled with a shock that the laboratory had been _inside_ the study; due to the limited space, Ibarra had made the writing desk part of his laboratory, and the cabinets of reagents he kept had been not far away. He had assumed that the building’s razing had been an order on the part of either the curate or the alferez, but perhaps not. It was not a nice realization. “The only one?” 

“The only one I am absolutely sure about. I could be persuaded to try the alcohols, but I used them mainly as solvents and fuels.” Ibarra shrugged. 

The alcohols. Of course. Many of them were flammable, if he remembered right. Damn him for a desperate fool. 

“Elías.” 

“Yes, señor.” 

“Which things did you take from my study before the house was burned?” Ibarra was squinting up at the sun, head inclined thoughtfully. 

“The suitcase, the sacks of money and jewelry, two revolvers, a dagger, and a portrait of Maria Clara, excepting some clothes I used to burn the documents,” he answered, trying to remember which pieces of clothing he had taken. At the time he had not actually planned to return the things to Ibarra, and he already had clothes, so he had been more careless than he should have been. There might have been a tie, and perhaps trousers. 

“You took the portrait?” Ibarra asked, amused. 

“You wanted to take it.” It was a strange reason, he realized, especially in light of his muddled intentions with regards to the whole collection, but everything had gone sideways that night. 

Ibarra sighed. “I think that will have to be left behind. I would have wanted to get a few more tools, but by then they were upon me, and you managed wonderfully as it was.” He gazed longingly at the water. “Can you walk?” 

“Of course.” 

“Then I think we should be on our way again. That wound of yours is just asking for infection, shallow as it is, and if it does get infected I shan’t be able to save you.” He sat down to dry his feet as if something were weighing him down—a world, or perhaps nearly a day’s lack of sleep, or both. 

* * *

Over the next day and a half they stopped thrice. Once for the night, when Ibarra slept with his head wrapped in his coat and his white shirt hidden by wild grass and weeds; once for water and food the next morning, very brief and very meager; and once again early in the afternoon of Noche Buena, each taking one nap and one watch in turns, since it was the last leg of the journey to the Ibarra woods. 

Between these three stops, and the short rests they took throughout, they lost about eight hours total, in addition to the hour they lost at the beginning to the requirements of Elias’s wounds. Even so, when they did spy the tomb gate in the undergrowth, it was only just past noon on Christmas Day, sooner than Elias had expected when allowing for Ibarra’s presence. 

He dropped his head and slowly gathered his strength for the last stretch. Exhaustion dragged at their feet and matched their strides more or less evenly, so that he sensed rather than saw Ibarra look up sharply. “Do you hear that?” 

Elias shook his head. 

“Someone’s crying.” 

He shrugged. 

“Someone’s inside—inside the tomb, that is.” 

It wasn’t as if the gate was locked. It had no need to be. If one of the townsfolk was inside the tomb, even now, they must be either mad or desperate, and Elias could take those chances. He shrugged again, pressed forward, and pushed the gate open with his shoulder. 

“Diyos kong Ama,” Ibarra murmured. 

A boy with a bandaged leg hunched over a limp figure in the shadows. At their approach he whisked around, revealing a blood-smudged forehead and red-rimmed eyes. With a pang Elias recognized the figure as Sisa, whom he had encountered now and then in her aimless wanderings. He took in her sprawled limbs grimly; sick, then, or dead. 

And the boy—the boy’s features were familiar, but Elias did not know him. He recalled vaguely that she was always talking or singing of her sons. This must be one of them, but for the life of him he could not remember their names. 

Ibarra, apparently, did. “Are you Basilio?” he asked. 

The boy nodded. Then, croakily, “How did you know?” 

Ibarra hesitated before replying, and when he did, his tone was full of guilt. “I promised your mother I would find you. I’m sorry. What will you do now?” 

“Bury her,” Basilio hiccupped. 

“Where?”

Basilio lowered his eyes to his mother’s corpse. “Here, if you want to help me.” 

“Well, we can trade,” said Ibarra, gently yet lightly, as if he were a boy himself and asking for no more than a pencil. “My friend here”—Elias blinked, dismayed—“has wounds that should have been attended to days ago. I could do it on my own, but I’m tired.” 

“So am I,” said Basilio. 

“Still, you’re an extra pair of hands. Either way, though, I will at least help you bury your mother, and accompany you back to your father.” 

Basilio grimaced. “My father is dead too.” Before Ibarra could do much more than flush in surprise, he added, “But I’ll help you. I was wounded too, a while ago, and the people who tended me would be pleased if I did the same.” 

“Thank you,” said Ibarra, still in that light, gentle tone, then turned to Elias. “Clean clothes, pot for water, and a knife: where?” 

“Check the undergrowth just beside the gate for the clothes,” he managed, bewildered. “The knife should be with them, and the pot in the tree."

Ibarra regarded Elias with thinned lips and burning eyes. “Sit down,” he ordered, “and go to sleep if you can. This will be neither pretty nor painless, and it will take rather longer than last time. If you wake up, I won’t ask you to sleep again, but you must try not to squirm.” 

He nodded and obeyed. 

So that was how he was doing it. 

That answered why there had not been so much as a murmur of argument from Ibarra about reform or revolution, and why he had been so firmly focused on their location. He was still moody and sullen when Elias did not talk to him of small things, but he did not sit in it like he had during the escape, which had been rather like sitting in a boat with a storm. He had been focused on the bullet wounds. 

It was a sound enough concept. There was something to be said about routine as a remedy for grief, and Ibarra was grieving, as much for his house and his ignorance, in a way, as for his father. He hoped, for Ibarra’s sake, that the anger was like the grief: insurmountable, but not completely destabilizing. That kind of anger Ibarra might one day learn to live with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> obviously I completely made up the wounds Elias sustained in this story. the only information from canon is from Basilio in El Fili: there were two and they were clearly made by firearms. in the chapter both Elias and Ibarra are pretty concerned about the arm wound, which is a gash torn by one of the bullets along one side of Elias's forearm. however, there was in fact a fair amount of panic about the one in his side, which is smaller but deeper; it doesn't cut any vital blood vessels or seriously wound vital organs but in my head definitely contributed to his death in Noli. 
> 
> please don't take my word for it. this was a lot of bad Googling and bullshit.


	2. In Which Basilio Upsets Some Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 is still not done, so it'll probably be a while before I'm back. rest assured, however, that I will be. I will now post this and wait for the headache to wear off before I start writing up my Res intro. 
> 
> by the way, here there be footnotes! there'll probably be more of those in the future, but so far the footnotes are just supplementary information for why I wrote shit the way I did. you can ignore them until you get to the end of the chapter, and then learn some trivia about how I came up with the stuff. or you can ignore them altogether, lmao. I just felt better putting them there.

When he awoke fully the air was twilit and sluggish, his wounds two blunt pains throbbing against the dull ache of the rest of him. His arm was bound up in white cotton strips, and a similar bandage wrapped around his chest. Evidently Ibarra had not seen fit to replace the shirt that had been torn to pieces for ties and a pressure cloth. Perhaps he hadn’t found Elias’s clothes; the cotton certainly did not look like one of his things. 

The boy—Basilio—was still there. He was sitting against the wall, drowsing, a new bandage on his leg. When their eyes met, he sat up, letting drop a rag that had been pressed against his head. “Are you feeling better, ginoo?” 

“ _Ka_ is fine,” he found himself saying. “Just ka. I think so.” 

“Your friend went to look for food and more cloth. He told me you would need some, because you lost blood,” said the boy, and patted himself down until he produced a squashed package from somewhere. “I forgot about this until he left, but I don’t think Nanay would mind if you ate it.” 

The child’s grave face said it all. “I will be fine,” he said firmly. “You can put that away for yourself.” 

“Your friend said you might say that,” Basilio said, smiling slightly. “He said I could force you if I had to. Consider this your warning.” 

It was awful of him to do it, but he _was_ hungry. Though Ibarra had made him take some of his share yesterday, they’d been in too much haste to gather much. He didn’t take all of it, of course; he still felt better when Basilio looked cheered by his acceptance. “And—my friend,” he said, remembering just in time not to say Ibarra’s name, “where did he go?” 

“He changed clothes, and went towards Tiani.” 

Tiani. At least Ibarra was smart enough not to go back to San Diego. “What was he wearing when he left?” 

“A camisa and a pair of gray trousers.” 

No frock coat. Without it, and with no one expecting to see him, Ibarra would have a fighting chance of moving without being recognized. “Did he keep his word to you?” 

Basilio frowned momentarily. “Oh! you mean about helping me. I think he will. He changed my bandages. If he doesn’t come back after three days, he said to ask you where to dig and split what I found with you.” 

“Really?” he asked, surprised. 

“That’s what he said.” A shadow passed over Basilio’s face. “He talked about a great many things to me, like my brother Crispin does. Did you know my father went to him when we were missing?” 

“No.” 

“Father never minded us before, so I asked him what had happened to make father mind, and he wouldn’t tell me,” he continued, with a scowl. “I think he thought I was too young to know.” 

Too late for that now, Elias thought with dark amusement. Then again, there might be part of the story Ibarra knew that he did not, and in any case what did he know about the minds of children? “How old _are_ you?” he asked, more to make the boy talk than out of a real desire to know. 

“Ten.”

Elias blinked. “And you are the elder brother?” 

“Opo, ginoo. Crispin is seven.” 

He really needed to stop being shocked by this sort of thing. Fortunately, when he made to stand up, he realized what the strange pulls in his wounds must be and got distracted. “Basilio, did he _stitch my skin?”_

The boy went a little pale, but he answered clearly, “Not until the end, because he made me boil the thread and needle too. They’re to hold your arm together so it can heal properly. He called them sutures.” Suturas was a Spanish word, and Basilio obviously did not know it. “You aren’t to take them out. They can get infected.” 

“Of course they can,” he muttered, annoyed. “They are _holes in my skin._ ” Ibarra meant well, and Elias was not experienced with bullet wound treatment, but _for God’s sake_. 

“They looked much worse before he started,” Basilio offered quietly. “The scab on your arm was soft and green.” 

He did _not_ need to know that. Even if he did not mind dying, he objected to dying of sepsis or necrosis; first on sheer principle, and second on account of the tedious pain of the whole thing. “I’m sure he did the best he could.” Something occurred to him. “Where did he get the needle and thread?” 

“From a small bag he took from the suitcase.” That was strange. Did he carry them with him for that purpose? “But, if I may ask, ginoo, how did you get wounded?” 

“Rifles,” he said, shortly. 

Basilio’s eyes grew big and round like a startled cat’s. “I wondered what it was he took out—that was a _bullet?_ ” 

“Yes, most likely. I don’t know.” 

“Were you shot by tulisanes?” 

“No.” 

The boy stared for a long minute, in something close to awed apprehension. “Are you a criminal?” 

“No. Yes. Perhaps; you’ll have to ask other people.” It was a bizarre question, since Basilio was plainly not afraid of him and showed no signs of becoming so. Seeing the expression on Basilio’s face and worrying only momentarily for the consequences, he added, “Before you ask, my friend is not nearly as dangerous as I am. He should not be with me at all, only there were—unfortunate circumstances.” 

Truthfully Ibarra was _more_ dangerous, due to his volatile emotional state and his otherwise sound mind and body. He possessed enough cleverness to twist, enough anger to twist it, and enough ability to do something with it. One did not simply say this to ten-year-old children. 

Basilio looked as if he knew there was something about Ibarra that he was not being told, but instead of asking he offered his squashy package again. “Do you want more tapa?” 

“Your deal was with my friend,” he said, wry, but he took some more. 

“The deal included helping you, and besides, I go by his orders, not yours,” said the boy. “If you want water, there’s some left over that he said should be safe to drink.” 

_His orders_. Possibly Basilio had not meant this very seriously, but it grated on Elias’s nerves. Ten-year-old children were, in his experience, impressionable enough when not distressed and bereft, let alone when they were. Ibarra in his current mood was fragile and unpredictable, and the boy was too, to some extent; keeping them in close proximity was asking for disaster. 

So there remained the matter of what should be done. “Do you have anyone who can take you in?” he asked. 

Basilio’s face fell. “I was staying in the mountains with the family who found me,” he said softly. “I told them I would be back with my brother, and I feel certain they would take care of us until I am strong enough to work.” 

“You are confident you will find your brother, then.” 

“Ye—not so much anymore, ginoo,” he faltered. “I have heard no news of him all night. When last I left him, he was—he was sure he would be killed, but I… I hoped…” He blinked, eyes suddenly damp. “Do you think—?” 

“I don’t think anything,” Elias interrupted briskly. The last thing he needed was a crying child on his hands. “I know next to nothing about the circumstances in which your brother disappeared.” 

Basilio took a deep breath. “Do you think he can be found?” 

“I don’t think anything,” he repeated. “There is nothing that can be done yet; you and I are both injured, we cannot search as well as we should. Put it out of your mind for the moment, at least until my friend returns, and then we can discuss what to do.” 

Basilio did not seem to like this idea very much, but at last he nodded. He sidled back up to the wall, took up the rag he had dropped earlier, and pressed it again to his head. There had been blood there, Elias remembered, when they arrived. He scowled. “Did he sew your wound too?” 

“Oh, no,” Basilio said ruefully. “This is really only a cut, ginoo, but he was worried because there was dirt in it.” 

Even the thought of sewing skin made him a little sick. Thinking of Ibarra doing that to the boy with the boy already having watched it done to another was horrible. Thank goodness it had only been him. He got to his feet and went outside to get more water, and to think, pot in hand. 

The cooling afternoon air and the familiar surroundings of undergrowth and shrubs let him sort his thoughts. The shape of Ibarra’s resentful words was still marked deep in his memory; the dread had settled by now, deep in his stomach, tense and difficult to unravel. He must get Ibarra out of the town as soon as possible, out of the country if he could. Ibarra must have friends elsewhere he was close to, who would help him whether or not he eventually managed to get pardoned. 

It would be a relief when Ibarra was finally gone. His easy, casual pride set Elias on edge, his comfortable ignorance irritated him to no end, his tenacious, desperate optimism excited Elias’s sympathy, and the debt—debts, now—and the revenge made everything worse. Elias only needed to save him one more time, and then Ibarra would no longer need him. 

That was not quite as satisfactory as clearing the debts entirely, but clearing them was no longer possible. He had only just made up for the crocodile incident, and now added to the account was everything Ibarra had done in the past two days, including persuading Basilio to help him. 

Speak of the devil. Ibarra came into view, tranquil and incongruously comfortable in his strange outfit, carrying a sack over one shoulder. The camisa Elias recognized as one of his own, but the trousers were Ibarra’s, and they looked ridiculous. Ibarra raised his hand at the sight of Elias. “You’re awake!” he called in Tagalog. 

“Indeed I am,” he said. He halted as Ibarra’s eyes narrowed, and held very still. “Once again you have saved my life. All that I am and that I have cannot repay you.” 

Ibarra blinked, surprised. “Then don’t try. I consider it more than paid, in truth. It is I who owe you.” 

“Whatever for?” 

“You warned me about my arrest,” Ibarra said quietly, dropping his eyes. “When I thought on it, I realized I was less frightened than I could have been. I knew their reasons because of you, so I went quietly and was not harmed. You brought me here, though you have every reason to hate me, though rightly I should be your enemy. Trust me, even your life can’t be worth that much.” 

He suppressed a snort. Ibarra had it sideways, but he could not honestly blame him for thinking that way. Instead he said, “As you wish,” and meant the opposite. 

“It _is_ as I wish,” Ibarra said, somehow simultaneously imperious and amused, as if they were sharing a joke. “I have some vegetables and shirts here that should be sufficient for the next day or two. Do either you or the boy know how to prepare a fish for cooking?” 

Ibarra was doing it again, he realized; distracting himself. Supplies were a good choice: Basilio should rest his leg, and he himself could not fish, hunt, or climb on account of his arm. Still, he could not help but notice that Ibarra retained his distant expression, unsmiling and wistful. “If I have a knife, running water, and a large enough clean surface, I should be able to do it.” He frowned. “If you _are_ going to fish, ginoo, be careful where they come from. Some might carry poison.” 

“What—really?” 

“Not intentionally; sometimes a fish that is not penned can eat something dead or sick that does not kill it immediately. Other times the water itself contains things that make the fish bad. I have not seen it in person often, but it happens.” 

“That’s unfortunate,” muttered Ibarra, his face turning darker for a moment. “Thank you for the warning. Take this back, will you? Put the shirts in my suitcase and do what you like with the vegetables—I will see if I can find fruit or fish near here. Don’t overexert yourself or you will tear your stitches, and then I would have to redo them.” 

Elias shivered, and took the sack. It was heavier than he expected. “Alright, ginoo. Is that all?” 

Ibarra was already walking away. His shoes were black leather, but he wore no socks. “Don’t expect me back for several hours, and if you want to drink, boil the water,” he said, without looking back. 

* * *

When Ibarra returned, it was well past dark, and he had a bucket full of water and two small hands of bananas. Basilio was asleep in front of the glowing embers of the fire; Elias had gone to fetch firewood and brought him more leaves and sticks to entertain himself with, and he had crawled all over the enclosure making star shapes in different variations. Ibarra made sure to step around the ones he could see in the rising moonlight, even if he was breathing hard. “What are these?” he asked in a low voice. 

“He says they’re parols,” said Elias, amused. Basilio had put little cinders on them, but the cinders had long since burned out. “Merry Christmas, señor.” 

“Merry Christmas,” said Ibarra wryly, and hefted the bucket. Elias was fairly sure he had not had a bucket before. He hoped he returned it when he was finished. “Two fish, one for us and one for the boy. I would have had a third, but I lost it. Will they keep until morning?” 

“May I have a look?” 

Ibarra set the bucket down and gestured. It was really a rather large bucket, big enough to go over one’s head entirely and come down to rest on one’s shoulders. The two fish inside looked the same type, with clear eyes and shining scales, and seemed to have enough water to breathe, even though Ibarra had probably spilled some on the way. “That was very well done,” he said, impressed. “They should keep rather well, though they may still die in the night. They spoil quickly, after that.” 

Ibarra nodded, pushing back the hair in his eyes. A smile hovered on his lips, small and bright. “Understood,” he murmured, and exhaled in a gust. “Your dinner will have to be fruit, I’m afraid.” 

He shrugged. Then, when he saw Ibarra swallow a yawn: “You can sleep. I will take first watch.” 

“Thank you,” Ibarra mumbled, already moving away. “Good night. And don’t tear the stitches.” He huddled in his coat under the balete tree—strange choice—and fell asleep almost immediately. 

Elias looked at the fish, who seemed to have grown bored of their small pen and were wriggling intermittently. The firewood was taken care of for the night. Basilio’s stick and leaf parols were visible again now, some of them in moonlight, others in firelight, and the boy himself was stretched out by the wall, head pillowed by his arms. He went to the gate to shut it, and froze. 

Father God Almighty, why hadn’t they buried her yet? 

If Sisa had looked pitiful when first he’d seen her, she was downright tragic now. The emaciation of her body could not be fully hidden by her torn clothes, and even before that had happened she could not have been very robust—not with her gaunt, hard-used hands and stooped shoulders. Her tangled hair was yet thick and rich, and the indications of its arrangement spoke to her pride in it. Above her hollow cheeks stared dark, gentle eyes, and below them curved a manic smile of supreme joy. Her son must have been the last thing she saw. 

Stepping gingerly around her inert limbs, he bent down and closed her eyes with his good hand. It took a good deal more effort than he had expected. She would be put to rest tomorrow, he decided. It didn’t do to leave her here like that. 

He closed the gate, shaken. 

The others had not even moved in their sleep. He took a banana to eat and leaned back against the wall, thinking about what to do. 

First of all was the boy. Ibarra had promised to help him, and Elias himself had as good as promised to discuss a search for his brother. Basilio did not seem an especially hysterical type, but he seemed deeply attached to Crispin, and if they did not find even a body it might be difficult to get him to give up. In the event they did find Crispin, he would need care and gentleness, since he likely did not yet know his mother was dead, and neither Ibarra nor Elias had any to spare. 

Either way, Basilio would have to go somewhere safe. Hopefully the family that had taken care of him the past month would agree to do so again; if they did not, the boy would need to find work. 

It only cemented his conclusion that in the end they needed to go to Manila. Many ships docked in the bay, trade flourished in the streets, and Ibarra and Basilio would find help in the houses of the rich. For one, logic dictated that Maria Clara would be there, and not only had she proven loyal to Ibarra and therefore probably willing to do him a favor, she might be persuaded to ask her father to take on Basilio as a servant, allowing him to study if he wished. 

Still, he supposed, if Ibarra refused to go to the capital, other ports would suit just as well. Surely not every ship that offered international passage docked at Manila; his own preference was because in Manila he _knew._ He was not quite sure about Batangas or Cavite, or even Tayabas. Ibarra would know better than he. 

Above him the clouds drifted slowly like wisps of silk on water, mingling with the treetops and vines into a funny sort of canopy through which stars occasionally caught his eye. Ibarra shifted in his sleep and began to snore softly. 

* * *

Elias was still staring up at the sky when a movement drew his eye and he turned his head. “Oh!” said Basilio, surprised. “Are you still awake, ginoo?” 

“I slept some,” he replied, just as quietly. He might as well have been sleeping; for the last hour or two he had been watching the colors and leaves shift and thinking mostly of the fish. They had survived the night and now he was wondering what to do with them. “Do you know anywhere to get tomatoes?” 

“No,” said Basilio, but his eyes were thoughtful. 

No tomatoes, no garlic, no oil either. Not many onions. His bag of salt had not yet run out, but that would not go very far with fish. No pepper. He sat up and pulled at tufts of grass with his good hand, careful not to uproot any of them. Though he would not very much mind eating plain food, it seemed like a waste to resign oneself to it so near a town of farmers, even if mostly the agriculture was in rice, sugar, and indigo. Besides, it was the day after Christmas. 

“Are those fish?” Basilio asked, peering into the bucket. 

“Yes, and I am trying to think of some way to cook them.” 

The boy considered their food supplies. “Wouldn’t they keep longer if we dried them?” 

“They’re only two rather small fish, and we are three,” he said, hiding his amusement. “They wouldn’t last very long in any case.” They also needed to get rid of the vegetables if they could. It would not go well for them to be caught with everything, since Ibarra had most likely stolen. 

“I could go see if the tomatoes near my house are still growing,” Basilio offered. 

“What’s this about tomatoes?” rasped Ibarra, poking his rumpled head out from his coat. He did not look happy. “Muchacho1, you are not walking if it can be helped. What do you want them for?” 

“For the fish, ginoo,” said Basilio. “Your friend wants to cook them.” 

Ibarra squinted at them for a moment, then passed his hand over his eyes and got to his feet, tossing his coat aside and making for his suitcase in one corner of the wall. He opened it and rummaged until he brought out a little purse. “I’ll get them,” he said. “How many do you want, and how big?” 

“Five or six, not very big,” said Elias, uneasy. 

“Right. If by midmorning I have not returned you will know I have been waylaid,” said Ibarra. There was a familiar pensive note in his voice. “And, my friend,” he added, in Spanish, “if you want something, for God’s sake ask me and not the child.” With that he flung open the gate and stepped through, closing it behind him. 

Basilio stared past it, a sharp, assessing look in his dark eyes. Elias had retrieved the knife and a shirt before the boy asked, “What did he say?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“What did he say to you?” 

He hesitated, then realized that if Basilio was asking that question, he must already know that Elias had understood, and translated as well as he could. 

“Teach me.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Teach me the words,” Basilio repeated, and dragged himself closer with his hands. “I don’t know any Spanish at all, but if I’m to work it will be good to know something.” 

That had occurred to him, but he had not expected Basilio to bring it up himself. “Come with me then,” he said, “unless you would prefer not to smell of fish. No, here, my arm—better.” Boy limping slightly and man walking gingerly, they made their way to the brook, where Basilio found a wide, flat rock that he could use, once he rinsed it off and put something clean over it. 

It was a hell of a time killing the fish with his arm as weak as it was. Basilio did not seem to notice his awkward grappling, fortunately, but he took longer than usual and his wounded hand was almost numb before he finished. While the fish bled out, they decided to start with Ibarra’s sentence. 

Basilio already knew _Dios_ and _amigo,_ but had to be taught the rest. He did not understand why Elias had said _sa ngalan ng Diyos_ when Ibarra had said nothing similar to _in God’s name,_ and for a while it looked as though they would stall there, until Elias said in desperation that it was the idea of the thing, and he caught on. 

Interestingly, the conjugation was not nearly as difficult for him to grasp2.

From there Elias taught him _come, go, take, get, fish,_ and _jacket,_ as well as _up_ and _down_ and the meals of the day. They nearly got stuck again at _moon_ and _night,_ because Basilio wanted to know why the words were feminine and Elias had no real answer. 

“You must understand,” he found himself saying, slicing out the fish fins carefully, “that some words do not match up precisely. Languages are distinct as nations are distinct; in language we speak our minds and hearts to each other, and over time we suit it to fit our needs in that respect. Thus it develops along the lines of our shared thoughts and feelings, and carries the imprint of our history, which is nothing more than our shared experience. It shapes the way we think, and we shape it to our ways of thinking in return. Language and culture are inextricably linked, so no two tongues will be exactly analogous. Other languages have grammatical gender—it is a concept that for us simply does not translate, because we have no equivalent.” 

He had not meant to say so much, but it was a topic he had thought much about in odd hours and minutes, and his thoughts tended to run away with him if he only gave them their head. There were a great many of them somewhere, aching to run. 

Basilio contemplated this for a moment, his good foot trailing in the water. “What happens,” he asked, “if I have an idea, but I only know how to express it in Tagalog?” 

He shrugged. “Then express it in Tagalog, and explain it if you must.” 

Basilio screwed up his face. “Is there a rule of some sort to say which words get which genders?” 

“Not that I know of.” 

“That seems like a lot of work,” Basilio remarked. 

“So is thinking,” he said, sardonically, and the boy laughed. “There are no real rules, but there are tendencies. Truthfully I think you will have more difficulty with the difference in the use of verbs.” 

Basilio nodded. “Thank you, ginoo, for your patience.” 

He flicked out a bone with his knife and said nothing. 

The boy’s eyes lingered on his face—not suspicious, exactly, but something very like; as if he was gaining slow consciousness of an idea about which he might have to take action. Elias turned his focus to the smallest bones and tried not to look like he was watching. Either Basilio would tell him or he would not. 

Dawn changed the hue of the air from blue to gold, and the birds of the trees began singing. He rocked back on his heels to let the light fall naturally on his work. Finally, Basilio asked, “Are you Don Crisostomo?” 

Elias poked himself on a stubborn bone. “ _What?_ ” 

“I won’t tell!” said Basilio quickly. “Only—only I think it must be either you or your friend, because you came to the Ibarra woods two days after Ibarra’s death on the lake. I don’t know which one of you it is: you both know Spanish, and he has those shoes and that suitcase, but you’re wounded and he has not a scratch.” Basilio bit his lip anxiously. “I won’t tell, I promise. Don’t… don’t kill me.” 

He swallowed hard to stifle a laugh. “I wouldn’t do it even if I could.” Not that he could, even if he were well—a hatred built over the years of his adulthood was not enough to make him touch Ibarra, and Basilio was a child who was not half as unsettling. “I hold you to your promise, however. Try not to give it away until after my friend and I have gone for good.”

Basilio nodded, his face glowing with resolve and secrecy. Elias bit down on another laugh. 

“Thank you for that.” It _was_ a powerful card to have, especially if Basilio saw them part. If the boy did give up information, he would be both completely honest and very wrong. Part of him was tempted to tell Ibarra, just to see what he did. Unfortunately, Ibarra had the dissemblance of lake water, and the game would be up as soon as he found out. 

Basilio sat up straight, and Elias realized that the devil had once again turned up where he was spoken of. Sure enough, Ibarra stumbled out of the undergrowth, leaves snarled in his hair and half a dozen tomatoes in his hands. He held them up wordlessly. 

“Thank you,” Elias said again, this time to Ibarra. “Basilio, are there any banana leaves around here?” 

“Do you want me to pick some?” 

“Not necessarily, but I need two.” 

Basilio’s eyes lit up, and he scrambled to his feet and ran at an uneven gallop towards the tomb. Elias looked at Ibarra’s drawn, grim face, and was tempted again to tell him about Basilio’s guess. Perhaps it would make him laugh. But Ibarra said with a frown, “He should not be running on that foot.” 

He shrugged. It was none of his business, really. “If you will allow me a suggestion, you might start digging the grave for that poor woman, so that when she is buried we can have breakfast.” 

“You don’t think that will ruin the boy’s appetite?” 

He shrugged again, chagrined that it had slipped his mind. “He can eat or not as he likes. The fish will keep for a day, perhaps two.” Just then Basilio came trotting triumphantly back, bearing two fine banana leaves, crisp but not quite fresh. “Slowly, slowly, you’ll fall into the brook. These will do. Go back with my friend, for this morning we bury your mother, and he will require your assistance.”

Basilio looked to Ibarra, who nodded. “I hope Don Crisostomo won’t mind,” he murmured. 

“I’m sure he won’t,” said Ibarra, softer than Elias had expected. “I’m not letting you dig, though.” A smile flickered over Basilio’s mouth at that, and when he disappeared after Ibarra into the green, his head was held high.

* * *

Footnotes: 

[1] I don’t know if this is horribly off-target, but for some reason it felt odd to use Basilio's given name. Ibarra calls Elias ‘amigo mío’ and Sinang ‘amiguita’, so he seems like the type, but even though at that point he's speaking Tagalog I was... hilariously out of my depth. Tandang Selo uses both ‘hijo’ and ‘muchacho’ to Basilio in Ch 63 (in the NMT edition I found on Project Gutenberg—1902, oof), so I picked the one I thought Ibarra was more likely to use. [return to text]

[2] I don’t know much about 19th century Tagalog or Spanish, but I personally can’t remember off the top of my head if Tagalog has a phrase that directly translates to ‘for God’s sake’, or what it is. And though the ProGu edition using vosotros conjugation is what largely influenced me, I think Basilio would find even the tú/usted thing easier to understand than the phrase _por Dios_. 

I also think Basilio might get confused about the word _something,_ because there isn’t… really a direct equivalent. Elias translated it as something like ‘kung mayroon kang gusto’/’kung may nais ka’, and in those phrases there’s no word that can, by itself, translate to _something_. I wasn’t sure, so I left it out. [return to text]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first out-loud long speech in two chapters and it's about _language_. what can I say, I'm a nerd who saw Simoun's rant about it in El Fili and went, that's some food for thought. it doesn't precisely fit the story, but until I find a way to leave it out it's staying. come back to me when summer break begins, lol. 
> 
> please feel free to point out any formatting errors, like if I left this (--) in instead of changing it to this (—), and also translation errors. conyo kasi ako haha :(


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